Tactical Feats (for all classes)

[Szatany]

Tactical feats are meant to be used with at-will attacks. This is to lenghten the interesting part of combat - when dailies and encounter powers are gone, and the character is left to at will powers, those feats allow choices for a little longer, hence the name.

Tactical subgroup means has two rules:
A character may not use more than one tactical feat per round.
Player can decide to activate the feat after the attack roll is made. If the feat adds to attack roll, it can even turn a miss into hit.
Whenever a player spends an action point, tactical feats reset. That means that each one already used can be used again in the same encounter.


HEROIC FEATS

• BLEEDING STRIKE [TACTICAL]
  Benefit: Once per encounter, you may add ongoing damage 3 (save ends) to Hit effect of an at-will power.
  This damage increases to 6 at 21th level.

• ELDRITCH POWER [TACTICAL, WARLOCK]
  Prerequisite: Warlock, Eldritch Blast power
  Benefit: Once per encounter, you may add both Constitution and Charisma to attack and hit of your eldritch blast.

• NOTHING FANCY [TACTICAL]
  Benefit: Once per encounter, you may add +5 feat bonus to damage with an at-will power.
  This bonus increases to +10 at 21th level.

• PRECISE ATTACK [TACTICAL]
  Benefit: Once per encounter, you may add a +4 feat bonus to attack with an at-will power.

• TACTICAL AIM [RANGER]
  Prerequisite: Ranger
  Benefit: Whenever you use a tactical feat, you gain +1 bonus to attack with the power affected by that feat.

• TACTICAL MOVEMENT [ROGUE]
  Prerequisite: Rogue
  Benefit: Whenever you use a tactical feat, you may shift 1 square after the at-will power is resolved.

• UNORTHODOX TEACHINGS [TACTICAL]
  Benefit: Once per encounter, you may use an at-will power of your class you do not have.

PARAGON FEATS

• FOLLOW UP [TACTICAL]
  Benefit: Once per encounter, if you hit with an at-will power, immediately after that power is resolved, you may make a secondary attack with a different at-will power against the same target.

• MULTIATTACK [TACTICAL]
  Benefit: Once per encounter, you may attack two creatures with an at-will power that normally targets a single creature.
  At 21th level, you can instead attack three creatures.

• RIGHT INTO THE OPENING [TACTICAL]
  Benefit: Once per encounter, if you hit with an at-will power, you score a critical hit.

EPIC FEATS

• TACTICAL REMEDY [CLERIC]
  Prerequisite: Cleric
  Benefit: Whenever you use a tactical feat, you may heal 10 damage to one ally within 5 squares.

 

[The Sword 88]

I like this idea and would like to try implementing it but right into the opening is not on par with the other two heroic tier feats and should be a paragon power. These feats are probably somewhat better than a normal feat, to help with that I would make the PCs declare the feat before the attacks role and they use it up hit or miss.

 

[Szatany]

Thanks for input, I moved RitO. I could change rule to "before attack" but I fear it might be too much of a nerf. Maybe if the attack fails, you don't spend the use? You would still waste a round so there is a penalty, but the feat itself is reliable.

 

[Forrester]

I like this idea and would like to try implementing it but right into the opening is not on par with the other two heroic tier feats and should be a paragon power. These feats are probably somewhat better than a normal feat, to help with that I would make the PCs declare the feat before the attacks role and they use it up hit or miss.

The first feat is weak, and the second is super-mega-weak -- even for 4E . . . +2 to hit once/encounter is just lame.

Looking at the increase-damage feats, figuring the average encounter lasts 6-10 rounds, I'd guess that on average they increase damage by about 8pts/combat, maybe a little more. The first increases it by 3.5pts, the second, by, ugh, maybe a couple of points at best. (Some guy doing 20pts with an at-will will hit 10% more often, once, meaning 2pts more.)

I'm not saying that every new feat should follow exactly the same guidelines, probably bad to allow characters to just pile up a huge number +8 damage/combat feats, but these . . . meh. For the 2nd one I'd say +5 to hit, for the 1st . . . maybe change [W] to [2W] or somesuch. Or leave it as it is, maybe, but it's kinda weak.

 

[The Sword 88]

The thing that makes the second one not weak is the after you roll. You can turn a near miss into a hit after knowing you missed.

 

[Unlogic]

For comparison with Nothing Fancy, Warrior of the Wild gives you +1d6 to all of your attacks against a specific creature 1/encounter (+2d6 paragon, +3d6 epic), and Sneak of Shadows lets you sneak attack for +2d6 damage on one attack (+3d6 paragon, +5d6 epic, though they all also require combat advantage), and both give the additional benefits of a trained skill and the ability to take other paragon paths.

They also can boost the damage of encounter or daily powers, where Nothing Fancy can not.

I'd say these feats also don't especially create more choices when daily and encounter powers are run out, as there aren't especially cases where you would not want to have bonus damage with your at-will powers when you are out of encounter and dailies.

You might be better off taking inspiration from the tactical feats of 3E, where each feat lets you do 3 or so shiny new conditional things, that are cool when you can set them up, but aren't going to be things you can necessarily do every round.

For example, you might update the Complete Warrior tactical feat Combat Brute as follows:

Combat Brute
Heroic tier feat. Prereqs: Str 15, Power Attack
Benefit:

• When you push an opponent with a power or bull rush, you gain +1 attack and +2 damage against that opponent until the end of your next turn.
• When you power attack while charging, you deal an extra +1 damage (+2 if 2-handed)
• Once per encounter when you hit with a attack, your target takes a -2 to attack and damage to its next weapon attack

This is probably slightly overpowered, I'm not sure, but it definitely is more "tactical" and interesting than +2 damage 1/encounter with an at-will power.

 

[mrtomsmith]

I agree with Unlogic - good idea, not the ideal implementation.

I've been pondering conditional feats, to give useful bonuses that apply when certain combat situations occur. These would maintain variety by encouraging players to seek out conditions that are already there. These are quick examples and not terribly well balanced. I'd like to require WIS or INT for most of these, to make up for the lack of WIS/INT Feats in the PH, but most of these sound like they'd be weapon feats, so that might not work. Or it might make the potentially-imbalanced Ranger even worse.

Overbearing: +2 att when elevated above target
Blindfighting: +2 att against Concealed targets
Opportunist: +2 att when target is in difficult terrain.
Downward Smash: +2 dmg against Prone targets
Sucker Punch: +2 dmg against Blinded, Dazed or Immobilized (mild sneak attack for non-Rogue; doesn't stack with Sneak Attack)
Quick Cover: +2 AC when in difficult terrain
Clever Hiding: +2 AC when in concealment
Clever Targeting: +2 att when Difficult, Challenging or Hindering terrain between you and target

That sort of thing.

 

[Fredrik Svanberg]

Tactical feats are meant to be used with at-will attacks. This is to lenghten the interesting part of combat - when dailies and encounter powers are gone, and the character is left to at will powers, those feats allow choices for a little longer, hence the name.

I don't know how many people would agree with you that this is the interesting part of a combat. If the enemies aren't dead when all dailies and encounters are gone... the encounter was probably too difficult.

Making at-will powers more interesting through feats is a good idea though. Good luck with that.

 

[Szatany]

I don't know how many people would agree with you that this is the interesting part of a combat. If the enemies aren't dead when all dailies and encounters are gone... the encounter was probably too difficult.

Making at-will powers more interesting through feats is a good idea though. Good luck with that.

I would have to run through numbers to agree or disagree, but I doubt there are more than 20% fights that don't go into at-will territory.

Anyway, I upped the power of two heroic feats, added third, and also added extra rule that makes tactical feats better at some circumstances (see rule 3).

 

[Szatany]

some new feats added